


Tethered to Kinder Shores

by missmungoe



Series: Shanties for the Weary Voyager [8]
Category: One Piece
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Nakamaship, Too Many Betting Pools, also featuring: that raunchy sea shanty Shanks composed about Makino
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-27 02:03:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12071397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmungoe/pseuds/missmungoe
Summary: She’s part of the crew, always have been. A pirate on land, no sea legs to speak of and no bounty to her name, and no crime committed except loving them for who they are.Makino and the Red-Hair Pirates. Oh—and their Captain, of course.





	Tethered to Kinder Shores

**Author's Note:**

> I've written a lot of fic with Shanks and Makino, and the Red-Hair Pirates always feature into their story one way or another, but this time I wanted to write a fic centred on this happy crew of middle aged campers, and their beloved barmaid.
> 
> This story runs parallel to the events in Siren's Call and Sailor's Folly, albeit from the perspective of a crew of gambling fanboys.

She’s important to all of them.

“Makino-san!”

The call of her name had her head lifting, seeking the voice across the room with a smile, but she didn’t pause in her step, manoeuvring between the tables with a tray balanced on one hand, a bottle in the other, not even looking where she was going, but trusting them to pull their chairs back and draw their legs out of the way as she passed. No less perilous than a pitching deck, but she didn’t even pause for breath, as though she knew the layout of the room in her sleep; the room with the lot of them in it.

A hand touched her elbow, and she paused, her smile brightening tellingly, and she spared a moment for their captain, along with a softly laughing reprimand when he made to reach for the bottle in her hand, although the intent behind the shameless pilfering hadn’t been the bottle, but the fleeting touch he stole instead, against the small fingers curled around it.

She didn’t notice. If she had, her face would have revealed it.

Grinning, Yasopp shook his head, and slid another coin across the table towards Ben, who closed his fingers around it without glancing up from his drink.

“ _One_ more lingering touch and she’ll realise,” Yasopp said.

Ben glanced up, smile quirking. “She won’t. Not unless he gets down on his knees and declares it. And even then I’m not convinced it would do the trick.”

“Cap’s utter lack of subtlety is completely lost on her. I didn’t think it was possible.”

“You’ll find curious things on this sea,” Ben mused, lifting his glass to his lips, and nodded to Makino as she breezed by them with a smile, a greeting offered as she stepped gracefully around a chair, the empty tray twirled between her hands.

“Yeah,” Yasopp agreed. “And she is that.”

It was an affection that took root early, through little things — an interest shown that wasn’t feigned, and not just in their captain, although that one was painfully obvious (they’d all have to be blind not to see it, or at least as blind as Makino seemed to the fact that the fool was completely lovestruck the moment he first laid eyes on her). But even with her clear favourite, she’d still made time to get to know them all, each and every soul in their crew. Wary at first, with her tavern full of wanted men, but she’d quickly warmed to their attentions (their captain’s doing, mostly, but they’re not about to tell him — he’d never let them forget it).

She wouldn’t ask them questions just for the sake of smalltalk. Instead she sought other, more personal things — their hometowns, their families, their reasons for seeking piracy above all other professions. And she remembered odd little details (Ben’s late sister’s smoking habit, and where and when Doc had gotten all his tattoos), and let it show in small, telling gestures (a plate of food put down at Lucky’s elbow without asking, and an extra minute spent by Yasopp’s table, listening to a story she’d heard three times already).

It had taken less than a week for her to learn all their names, and another to learn how they all preferred their drinks. Three nights into their first extended stay in Fuschia, she’d put lemon in Doc’s gin and tonic without asking, and had pulled down an old bottle of scotch from her top shelf because someone had let it slip it was the Captain’s preference. And when asked about its origins, she’d only smiled a sad little smile and said “good alcohol should be enjoyed, not sit around collecting dust”, and had split it between them all, as best she could.

They found out later it had been her late mother’s favourite, saved for a special occasion before her passing had rendered the sentiment obsolete.

They tracked down the distillery, the brand long out of production, but managed to root out a bottle from a collector in a remote corner of North Blue. The look on her face when they’d presented it to her would have made a trip twice that length again worth it.

“Save this one,” Shanks said, before Makino could even protest the gift. “For a special occasion.”

She opened her mouth, then shut it, her hands stilling on the bottle, twice as old as she was and then some. The expression on their captain’s face wasn’t even trying to hide his excitement.

“A special occasion?” she asked then, her smile warming with that in-spite-of-herself fondness that seemed to resurface a lot where their particular crew was concerned, and their captain more than anything. “What did you have in mind, Captain?”

Shanks’ smile softened a bit from its preening enthusiasm, although the thoughts behind it were no less obvious. If she recognised what it meant remained to be seen, but from the small flicker of hope on her face, she had her suspicions of what it might be.

And they all knew what the answer was, to her question — their own hopes, sitting in that bottle; a whole crew’s worth. They’d been returning to Fuschia between voyages for almost half a year, but they would be setting sail for good one day, and for the Grand Line this time. It was a voyage most pirates never returned from; she knew that as well as any of them, even if she wasn’t a pirate. Not in name, anyway.

But she was part of them, and in more ways than just the anchor to their captain’s heart — theirs like they were hers, and always welcoming them home like they belonged; a crew of men who’d long since left the meaning of that word on the docks of their old villages and towns. It wasn’t a given that they’d ever make it back here once they left, but damn it if they wouldn’t try.

“I’ll think of something,” Shanks told her, nudging the bottle closer, their fingers bumping. The touch lingered, and long enough for even her to notice, this time. “Just hold on to it until then, yeah?”

The smile had slipped off her face, despite her attempts at keeping it. And she’d caught on now to the thoughts behind the gift, and everything it implied; the years they’d be gone, and the fact that they might not make it back. But she accepted the bottle and all the hope in it, and put it on the very highest shelf, her hands shaking a bit, but she didn’t give them the chance to fret for long, busy fetching glasses, and their favoured drinks already in mind.

She lingered a bit longer by their captain’s side that night, a little more brazen in her attentions, seeming prompted by the thought of their impending departure, if still a little ways off. Shyly possessive, it was an endearing demonstration of blatant partiality that had them all grinning into their glasses.

“Hand! Look, look—her hand on his back! For Makino-san, that’s practically feeling him up. Pay up, Ben.”

“Would you keep your voice down?” someone hissed.

“Yeah, curb your enthusiasm a little. You’d think she'd crawled into his lap. I’ve seen Cap get more amorous with Doc when he’s on meds.”

“A reminder I could have lived without,” Doc murmured.

“Some heavy petting wouldn’t kill them,” someone interjected. “Would put us all out of our misery, at least.”

A muted choir of glasses clinking together punctuated the remark, along with a murmur of approval.

Shanks lifted his hand then, to settle it on her hip, and someone suffocated their gasp with a napkin.

There was a long beat where all the conversation in the room seemed to have ground to a halt, although neither of the people in question seemed aware they were being observed.

Someone whispered, “Hey, do you think she—”

“ _Shh_!”

A warm laugh fell from her then, before she leaned into the touch, and the hand on Shanks' shoulder trailed up to brush against the hair at his nape.

“Ben,” someone said simply, and Ben sighed, forking over a pouch of coins.

And it was obvious she’d made her choice, although for all their teasing about winning her over, there’d been no real competition. But the depth of her feelings for one man didn’t stop her from seeing each of them as they were, or from treating them with any less affection (well—a different kind of affection, because as generous as she was with her attentions, her touches she reserved for the idiot grinning so widely it was embarrassing to look at).

And their reason for coming back might be their captain’s heart, but that didn’t mean their own were any less invested. After all, the bottle on her shelf was the least subtle declaration of attachment they could have managed between them, seeming to say, loud and clear, _here’s a part of us, just try to take her._

 

—

 

“Come on, Ben. Please?”

She had her elbows resting on the counter, her expression enraptured. It was hard to look away from a face like that, full of so much earnest interest — even harder to turn down the request.

“He’d never forgive me if I told you,” Ben told her. “It’s a spectacularly undignified account. If you were harbouring any hopes that he’s as suave as he’s trying to convince you, this will kill them. Swiftly, but not necessarily painlessly.”

Her smile brightened, a wide, lovely thing. And while it was hard to look away, it wasn’t at all hard to see what had their captain so enamoured. “Perfect,” Makino chirped. “I’m all ears.”

Ben just looked at her, watching him. A quiet lull claimed between servings, she’d sought him out, the way she had of doing with all of them. She’d asked about their latest voyage (—the real account, not whatever heavily embellished, swashbuckling adventure Shanks had tried to sell her earlier, although Ben knew as well as any of them that she was particularly susceptible to their captain’s tales, however unbelievable), and had lingered a moment to talk. With her bar full of pirates vying for her attention, the show of consideration would have been remarkable but for the effortless way she seemed to have of distributing it between them.

She was still watching him with that _look_ that begged a man’s secrets from his heart, and Ben spared a passing lament to a time in his life where he hadn’t been quite so inclined to drop everything at the whims of people with far too convincing smiles. A time before a certain idiot had tracked him down and suggested (and with a _grin_ that had said plainly that it was less of a suggestion and more of a matter of fact) that he should come with him to be a pirate.

Looking at Makino now, Ben couldn’t decide if her particular brand of delicate coercion was any kinder than Shanks’ blunt, no-holds-barred one.

Probably not.

“As a disclaimer, I would like to point out that I’ve never been so drunk in my life,” he told her, and sighed when her eyes brightened visibly. “My decision-making skills were severely impaired.”

She was grinning now. “Duly noted.”

He told her the story — the whole, ridiculous tale, from the moment they’d first set foot on the island in question, to the one where they’d woken up off the coast of a completely different island, with their captain tied to the main mast, and without a stitch of clothing on him.

By the end of it Makino was laughing so hard she could barely hold herself up, the unrestrained demonstration of mirth nothing like she was known for; that soft bell-chime that would slip under the din but never above it. This laugh _carried_ , and Ben had to hide his smile behind the rim of his glass, it was such a startled thing.

If she noticed the amount of delighted grins turned her way, or the fact that every conversation in the room seemed to have paused in favour of observing her, Makino didn’t let on, although Ben suspected she might have been a little flustered if she’d realised.

A glance across the room found Shanks raising his brows, expression full of bemused delight, but Ben only shook his head.

“I still don’t know who tied him to the mast,” he said, when she’d gathered herself enough to focus on what he was actually saying. “No one remembers. But it took half an hour untying all the knots to get him loose, and then he spent ten minutes throwing up over the side of the ship.”

She was wiping her eyes now, hiccuping laughter. “O-oh, my stomach hurts.”

Ben smiled, and cut another glance across the room. “I know you won’t be able to lie your way out of this, so when he asks what story I told you, you might as well make it worth the telling.” He looked at her, brows raised. “So make sure you tell him that I included the part with the violent, naked retching.”

Makino pushed a breath past her lips, as though to regain some of her control. “So much for being a wise and experienced sea captain.”

Ben snorted. “That’s what he calls himself?”

“I think the words he used were ‘seasoned buccaneer’.”

“Of course he did.”

Her eyes were grinning, tears of mirth clinging to her lashes. “Does he always rely on you to get him out of trouble?” she asked.

Ben looked at her, endless dark eyes and that easily spellbound smile.

No, it definitely wasn’t hard to see the appeal.

“There are times even I can’t help him,” he told her at length, and watched as her brows furrowed a bit, confusion wrinkling her nose at the implication sitting in that remark. And he saw when something like understanding followed, settling in the slight parting of her mouth.

He might have felt some measure of regret at letting slip such a blatant insinuation of just what kind of hold she had over their captain, but it wasn’t like Shanks was being any less obvious about it. Of course, leave it to Makino to assume differently.

“Hopefully, this won’t be what spells his downfall,” she said, with a strained laugh, and very noticeably kept her eyes from drifting to the back of the room. Ben wondered how much effort it took. Likely a considerable amount, from the abuse she was inflicting on the dish-rag.

“I’m not so sure,” he told her, and politely pretended not to notice the _hope_ that brightened her eyes when they leaped up to meet his. And even for him, it took a staggering amount of self-control to keep from shaking his head at the whole situation.

Idiots, both of them. But they were his idiots, although just how he’d gotten himself roped into this mess, Ben didn’t know.

It was probably the smiles.

 

—

 

That she was kind didn’t take more than a second in her presence to determine, but her kindness would show in different things.

The plate was put before him, the familiar smell hitting his nose before anything else, and Lucky knew he had to be wearing his surprise, because her expression brightened at the sight of it.

He blinked down at the offering, before lifting his eyes again. “Ma-chan,” he said. “This is—”

He didn’t finish the sentence, but Makino smiled, and said, “I tried out a few recipes, but I hope I got it right.” When all he did was stare at her, she dropped her eyes, smile suddenly shy. “Yasopp, ah— he mentioned that you get homesick from time to time. That you miss the food.”

His mouth worked, but he didn’t know how to respond. He’d never been good with words — not like Shanks, who talked more than he drew breath. He couldn’t conjure quick comebacks like Yasopp, or deliver them with Ben’s dry ease, and so, “You did that just for me?” Lucky blurted, before he could stop himself.

She was a good cook, and they’d all sung her praises where that was concerned. And she knew their favourite meals like she knew their poison of preference, but this was different. No one had cooked for _him_ since he’d first left home.

Her expression soft, she shrugged, tucking her arms around her empty tray. “I think no matter where you are in the world, it’s always good to remember your home,” Makino said. “Even if it’s just in the little things.”

He looked at the plate, then back at her where she stood, the smell of her cooking filling the air, seeming to fit itself in amidst all the other scents of her bar — the flowers on the shelf and the sea beyond the windows. If home had a smell, he reckoned it was something like this.

“Thank you,” Lucky said, the stark simplicity of the offering falling laughably short of what he wanted to say, but her smile showed in her eyes, and she didn’t seem to find anything wrong with it.

“You have a good heart, Lucky Roo,” Makino told him.

His grin was sheepish, and he was pretty sure he looked as stupid as their Boss tended to look around her. “Yeah, well you found the way to it,” he told her, and scratched the back of his head when she laughed, the sound a suddenly loud thing. A certain someone’s influence, most likely, but they weren’t the only ones leaving their marks, Lucky thought, as he reached for his fork, the smell drifting up from the plate making tears press against his eyes. But if she noticed, Makino only smiled, and kept it to herself.

 

—

 

“You want me to teach you how to shoot?”

He knew his shit-eating grin probably wasn’t the reaction she’d hoped for, but it was difficult tempering his delight when she was looking at him like that, Yasopp found.

“I know how a pistol works,” Makino told him, a twinge of something he was tempted to call nervousness making the words stumble a bit on her tongue. Then, her mouth twisting with a sheepish smile. “Ah, well—I know the basics. What I’d like is some practice. If—if you wouldn’t mind.”

Yasopp observed her, standing by the table; the pretty floral apron and the sunny yellow kerchief holding her hair back. Kindness personified and drawn with delicate lines, nothing about her suggested either a thirst or an affinity for weaponry.

“Any particular reason?” he asked, and his grin said enough about what he suspected said reason might be.

She was fiddling with her apron, but kept her expression surprisingly level. Of course, her eyes revealed just about everything else. “Do I need one?”

He cocked his head. “Want to impress Cap?”

The furious blush made it impossible to keep his grin from stretching, but the unimpressed purse of her mouth told him he was treading on dangerously thin ice with his teasing.

Still. It was hard to resist.

“You know, I don’t think you need it,” he told her. “Idiot’s so head over heels it’s a little embarrassing. For the rest of us, that is.”

The smile that chased across her face looked distinctly pleased, and the flustered tuck of her hair behind her ear betrayed her attempted nonchalance. She was about as subtle as their captain when it came to her feelings, although the difference was that Shanks wasn’t really trying to be.

“But okay,” Yasopp said, still grinning. “I’ll help you.”

He refrained from teasing her about her reasons for wanting to learn (well, he kept it to a minimum; he really couldn’t help himself), because there were few who could endure his chatter with the same grace, and who showed as much interest in what he said as she did. And she didn’t even have a reason to pretend, or any ulterior motive behind her interest. It was just who she was.

She asked about his son. She always did, even if he was sure she knew every story by now, and everything there was to know about the boy. And she listened when he talked — really _listened_ , and to the things he didn’t say, every hidden grief and regret that slipped between the lines and the anecdotes that were so familiar he could recite them in his sleep.

He let her use one of his spare pistols; a small thing, old and cared-for, the wood polished smooth and the metal oiled to shining. He didn’t keep it around for using, but it was a good practice gun, and it fit neatly into her hands.

“Usually,” Yasopp told her, helping her adjust her grip, before slipping her a wink, “I’ll tell my students to always handle a pistol with the same care they would their own…firearm. If you catch my drift.”

Makino blinked at him, brows furrowed, before realisation struck with a spectacular blush, but before she could even choke out a response, “So for you, I’ll just tell you to handle it with the care that you would the Captain’s,” Yasopp chirped, and when she fumbled the pistol in her hands, threw his head back with a laugh that startled a bird out of a nearby tree.

“Yasopp!” Her voice had a shrill note to it, and she was looking over her shoulder, as though to see if anyone had overheard.

“What? I’m just offering helpful advice on how to handle a loaded weapon,” he said, grinning at the mortified look she shot him. “Wasn’t that what you came here for?”

She didn’t seem to appreciate his cheek, and looked like she was hoping someone would shoot _her_ , if only to save her from having this conversation, and Yasopp’s laugh softened as he patted her shoulder.

“Come on,” he told her. “You can take your frustration out on the targets.” And with another wink, “Trust me. It’s more effective than a cold shower.”

Makino groaned. “Please don't.”

Grinning, Yasopp complied, but only long enough to get in some actual teaching between quips. He set up a row of bottles on the fence at the edge of town, and went through the basics. Her late mother had taught her to shoot once, Makino told him. She hadn’t kept to it, but she was a quick study, even with his entirely cheeky suggestions (“ _squeeze_ the trigger, don’t yank at it”), and after a few fumbling attempts she hit one of the bottles, her tongue tucked between her teeth in an endearing show of concentration.

She was still blushing, but endured the whole thing with an air of stubborn dignity, and the pleasure on her face when she succeeded wiped away any last remnants of embarrassment.

“Keep it,” he told her later, at the end of their session when she made to give the pistol back.

He watched her consider the gun, turning it over in her hands, before she looked at him with those eyes that had seen so little, but that still saw more than most. “Are you sure?”

Yasopp smiled, and shrugged. “Suits your hands better than mine.” Then when she dropped her eyes to the gun again, “Keep it behind the bar,” he told her, pausing only a moment before adding, “Just in case.”

She looked up at that, surprised. And he didn’t say anything else, but saw as understanding settled across her features. And none of them had ever brought it up around her, which was well-intentioned, but ultimately counterproductive. At least Yasopp thought so. This village might not see a lot of pirates, but he’d seen enough of the sea to know what it sometimes dragged to shore. It wouldn’t do her any favours to face it unprepared, if it ever happened.

They were all leaving parts of themselves behind, Yasopp knew, the Captain more than any of them. Let this be his.

Makino curled her fingers around the pistol, and nodded once, determined. And Yasopp thought of the woman who’d last held that gun, twirling it around her finger with that laugh that had always made him forget what he’d been about to say, one hand on her straining stomach and a clever gleam in her eye.

_Impressed? I’ve been practicing._

He grinned, and looked towards the fence; the last bottle standing. “You know who can land a shot like this with her eyes closed?” he asked her then.

Makino blinked, and her smile quirked, curious. “Who?”

He lifted his pistol, eyes on the lone bottle, and the fields stretching beyond it, seeing suddenly a different island, and with his next breath he closed his eyes and took the shot.

It hit its mark, and the bottle explored, a shower of coloured glass to catch the sunlight, spilling green-and-gold gemstones on the grass, but Yasopp allowed his eyes to stay closed a moment longer, seeking that proud smile in his memory that had always delighted in besting him.

“My wife.”

 

—

 

“You gave her a pistol?”

Yasopp shrugged, and lifted his glass to his lips. The ship swayed a bit, the storm outside hammering against the deck, but the drink sat steady in his hand. “She’s got a knack for it,” he said, tipping the glass back. “Good aim.”

The look Shanks shot him held amusement, and something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. Ben glanced up from the paper in his lap, but whatever his thoughts, didn’t offer them.

“And it might come in handy,” Yasopp said, meeting his captain’s eyes. “Fuschia might not attract a lot of pirates, but if we found a reason to dock there, what’s stopping anyone else? She runs that place on her own, and you saw how the rest of ‘em reacted the day we arrived. Won’t be much help to find there, if it happens again.”

He paused, the words punctuated by a crack of lightning outside the galley. The ship heaved a bit, before settling back on the waves, a little uneasily, and, “You’ve thought about it,” Yasopp said, when Shanks had offered no comment. “Don’t even try to tell me it hasn’t crossed your mind.”

A slight hardening of his expression was all his face revealed, but, “No,” Shanks agreed. “I’ve thought about it.”

Yasopp nodded. “Someone that good…” he said, letting the words trail off. “The world hasn’t got a lot of kindness to offer in return. That’s usually the way of things. Better she’s prepared for it.”

“It might not be such a bad idea,” Ben agreed. “We won’t be around forever.”

Somehow, the last half of his remark fell with the weight of an accusation, but Shanks met it without flinching, and Yasopp thought it better than to point it out.

“Anything you want to say, Ben?” Shanks asked, cheerfully.

Ben’s eyes were back on the paper. “Nothing at all.”

The slight shift was barely noticeable, but Yasopp had always had a keen eye for subtle changes, in mood as well as in anything else. The shiver of tension didn’t linger long, but it left an aftertaste, like a shot of cheap liquor clinging to the roof of his mouth.

The sky outside rumbled, the portholes yielding nothing but darkness and water, sea and sky coming together to throw the waves against the hull. The guttering lantern on the table inched a bit towards the edge, before settling.

“You know,” Yasopp told Shanks then, grin lightening the mood with a flash of teeth. “She asked because she wanted to impress you.”

The startled smile on his face hurt to look at, Yasopp thought, but didn’t let his own slip, and downed the feeling with the rest of his drink. Because he knew what sat behind that smile — still felt it whenever he thought of the island he’d left, and the woman on it, who’d told him she’d marry him the day they’d met. The son she’d given him, who was growing up without him.

He looked at Shanks then, and thought that he might have felt regret at the fact, that he was following down the same path, towards a future that would never feel whole. Easier for all parties if well enough was left alone, but the heart very rarely chose the easier path, in Yasopp’s experience.

And anyway, whenever he thought about his family—the woman who could take a killing shot with her eyes closed and one hand behind her back, and the boy who had his curls—regret was the last thing on his mind.

 

—

 

“Okay, but just how obvious can you get?”

“Depends on what you’re referring to—the girlish giggling, or the fact that Boss is so smitten he’s not even drinking?”

“And then there’s Makino-san,” someone interjected, earning a snort of laughter from across the table.

“Give them a break,” someone else said. “Love makes idiots out of the best of us.”

The objects of discussion didn’t seem to be aware they were being observed, or discussed. Then again, they didn’t seem to be aware of much beyond each other.

“God, Boss is bad at flirting,” someone sighed, to a laughing murmur of agreement.

“I don’t know, it looks like it’s working.”

“Anything will seem charming if you’re already that infatuated. Oh man—he’s telling the story with the bears, isn’t he? I know that sweeping gesture.”

“Not the bears, Boss,” someone groaned. “That story does not do you any favours.”

“Look at her smiling, though. Even I’d tell that story if I could get a girl to look at me like _that_.”

There was a moment of silence around their table, disappearing under the din, and their captain’s laughter when he threw his head back, Makino’s following closely at its heels, a softer thing. Her cheeks were flushed, and the hands fretting on the counter were doing a terrible job of hiding what they wanted to do. The glass she’d put down in front of Shanks sat, untouched.

The pause had stretched on for a few seconds before someone asked, quietly, “Who do you think will take leaving the hardest?”

Someone else sighed, but the sound was drowned by the next roar of laughter from where their captain looked ready to slip off his barstool.

“You mean it’s not obvious?”

 

—

 

“Boss.”

Shanks looked up from the map laid out on the table to take in the group who’d gathered before it — his whole crew crammed into the galley, the sinking sun at their backs.

“This isn’t a mutiny, is it?” he asked, cutting his eyes to Ben, seated on the other side of the table from him.

He got a raised brow for that. “Don’t look at me,” Ben said. “I haven’t been plotting one in a while.”

Shanks stuck his tongue out, and Ben’s brief smile came to settle in the corner of his mouth.

“You should ask her,” someone said then, drawing Shanks’ attention back. They were all looking at him, expressions somewhere between expectant and curiously determined.

“Makino-san,” another voice spoke up, as though to elaborate, although he’d already caught on to what they were doing. He’d been expecting something like this. “You should ask her to come with us, when we leave for the Grand Line.”

Shanks looked at the map of East Blue, gaze finding the island that was never far from his mind. Well — not so much the island as the woman on it.

“She has a life,” he said at length, dragging his eyes away from the map, and his thoughts from the smile in his memory; the warm, laughing eyes. “I can’t just ask her to uproot it to be a pirate.”

“Why not?” someone asked. “She could have a life with us.”

“Yeah. We’d keep her safe.”

“And Yasopp’s been teaching her to shoot!”

“She’d make an interesting pirate,” Ben mused, rolling an unlit cigarette between his fingers, before lifting it to his lips to light it.

Shanks watched them, several more voices having risen in eager accompaniment, offering their thoughts — that many of them hadn’t had much more experience when they’d first joined, and that it wasn’t like she wouldn’t have anything to do.

“She’s organised,” someone pointed out. “More than you are, Cap.”

“And she’s diplomatic.”

“We could use a bit more common sense on this ship,” someone agreed, and Shanks caught Ben’s smile, a quick, fleeting thing.

There was a word on the tip of his tongue, ready to offer his agreement, but he held it back. He’d thought about it, of course — asking her, if only because the thought of setting sail and never seeing her again was hard for him to breathe past. Even with all the sea in the world ahead of him, and all the freedom on it, putting the East Blue behind him seemed like the hardest thing he’d ever been faced with.

Looking at the rest of his crew, he had a sense the feeling was of a mutual sort.

It was strange. He’d never been the type to put down roots. He’d always loved the freedom of moving from place to place, no home but his ship and no family but the crew on it, but lately he’d found himself thinking about it more and more — the possibility of another family, little feet toddling between the tables of a crowded bar, and her smile greeting him on the docks when he stepped off the gangway. Those dark eyes, in another little face.

But the Grand Line rarely allowed for safe returns. If they set sail for that sea, there’d be no turning back. Not at once, anyway. And he couldn’t ask her to wait indefinitely. It wouldn’t be fair.

But...maybe she’d say _yes_ , if he asked her to come with them. Maybe, instead of waiting for him to come back, she’d be beside him instead, and the little feet in his mind would be taking their first steps across the deck of his ship, a hundred hands ready to catch them from falling.

Maybe it was a fool’s hope, even considering the possibility.

Shanks looked at them all, waiting for his decision. All the foolish hearts that had anchored themselves in a tiny little village in a forgotten corner of the sea, and a girl who was anything but forgettable.

He sighed, but the smile that followed ruined any hopes he’d had of advocating caution, but then that had never been his strong suit.

“I’ll ask her, but don’t get your hopes up,” he told them, and refrained from shaking his head at the grins that erupted across their faces, and the hoots of laughter that broke out, before the promise of a party followed suit, and loudly.

When he looked at Ben next, it was to find himself being observed, and with a look he’d seen more times than he could count — the one that had preceded more than one harebrained scheme and poorly-made decision. But there was no fond condemnation accompanying it now, just a stark, unforgiving weight of understanding.

“You sure they’re the ones in need of that advice?” Ben asked, the query too low to rise above the laughter and the singing. With the celebratory mood, it took effort to keep himself from imagining what it would have been like with her present, not serving them but at home among them; a part of his crew, and his life. The life of a pirate, with all that entailed.

“No,” Shanks said honestly, and thought the truth of that statement might have been easier to swallow with a strong drink. Although it would take more than that, he knew, to drown out the image of what she’d look like, standing at the bow, her hair loose and the sea at her feet.

 

—

 

“I hope you know they adore you,” he told her one morning, tracing nonsensical patterns on her skin, bared in the sunlight and wrapped in soft sheets — and him, but nothing about him was soft; nothing tender in old scars and hard, sharp-boned limbs. The span of his palm over her slender back looked at odds with the shape beneath, all of her unmarred, delicate bones shifting under her skin, moon-white against his.

“The guys,” Shanks clarified, trailing his fingers up her spine to seek her hair, the tangles left from his earlier attentions slipping through them. He rested the weight of his hand on her neck, tracing the dip of her hairline, and the shorter hair there.

He got a tired hum in response. She’d stretched herself out atop him, hip to hip, her tiny body seeming only more pronounced by his larger frame beneath it, their legs tangled and his arms wrapped around her, but she lifted her head from his chest now, pushing herself up to look at him. Her eyes shone brown in the sunlight, her pupils wide and dark, and the look on her face danced between fond and knowing. “The guys, hmm?”

Shanks grinned up at her; the sight had his heart beating a little faster in his chest, trapped under the featherlight weight of her dainty hand, splayed atop it. “Yeah. They’re painfully obvious about it.” He touched his fingers to her ear, sketching the curve of it, before drawing a path down the line of her jaw. When he spoke next his voice had dropped a notch, quietly musing, “Sometimes I wonder what they’ll do without you. They’ve gotten pretty attached.”

Her amusement softened, and he didn’t doubt that she’d heard what he was really saying. “I’m sure they’ll manage,” Makino said, fingers brushing absently over the hairs on his chest. “Fierce pirates that they are.”

“I don’t know if you overestimate just how fierce, or if you’re not giving yourself enough credit.”

“I’m just a girl in a port,” she told him, smiling. “What kind of damage can one girl do?”

Shanks just looked at her. “You’d be surprised,” he said. “You’ve left something of a mark, and that kind of thing lasts.” His grin crooked a bit. “I should know—I have a lot of them.”

He caught the shift of her gaze, and reaching up a hand, she traced a fingertip along the gouges over his eye. The excruciating tenderness of the gesture made something knot in his gut.

“I hope they know I’ll miss them terribly,” Makino said, looking at him. Her voice had a different quality to it, a slight quaver, but she didn’t seem bothered with pretending.

She’d turned down his offer to come with them. Well, she’d told him to ask her again in ten years, which wasn’t the answer he’d hoped for, but it was more than she could have offered, and so he’d grabbed hold with both hands. And ten years was a long time, and the sea they were setting sail for anything but kind, but he’d lived a long enough life to know a good thing when he had it within reach. He wasn’t about to let her go just because the odds were stacked against them.

He’d never been able to resist poor odds, anyway. Ben could attest to that, as could the rest of his crew, who’d often suffered the consequences of that particular predilection. Poor odds only meant a greater challenge, and for the rewards that this challenge promised, he’d bet more than just a few years of waiting.

“Terribly, huh?” He tucked her hair behind her ear. “If I tell them you said that, they might refuse to leave. I’ll be out of a crew. Or you’ll have one on your hands. Then what will you do?”

The smile she gave him didn’t succeed at hiding her sadness, although Shanks doubted she was trying. “The sea’s calling will be the louder one in the end, I think,” Makino said quietly.

Shanks said nothing to that. Not because he agreed with her reasoning, but because the truth wouldn’t change things — and it wouldn’t make it any easier to bear, telling her that if it had been that easy, they would have set sail for the Grand Line months ago.

From the look on her face, he thought she might have heard it, anyway. And she didn’t hold it against him, leaving; like he didn’t hold it against her, wanting to stay.

She kissed him then, the flat of her small palm poised on his chest as she leaned forward, her lips as soft as the rest of her. And he’d been kissed plenty of times in his life (he’d been told more than once that his mouth was good for three things — talking, kissing, and getting himself into trouble, the last usually following the first two), but never the way she kissed him, with a deliberate gentleness that took its time in learning to know him; a tentative question seeking an answer that he was always more than ready to give, kissing her back with the reckless fervour that was his, until she was laughing against his mouth, his fingers fisted in her hair.

He’d miss those kisses, he thought, releasing her mouth to kiss her jaw, her cheek, her pulse where it leaped in time with her laughter, and her nose where it scrunched up under his attentions.

“Speaking of the sea calling,” Shanks said, drawing back to look up at her, fingers drifting down to settle on her hip, prompting her brows to quirk upwards. “You never did say _no_. You just said to ask you again later. So technically, this still makes you a pirate. On hold.”

She pursed her mouth with a smile. “A land-bound one, maybe,” Makino conceded, but with a pleased gleam in her eyes.

“Still a pirate,” he countered.

She tilted her head, observing him, fingers running through his hair where it fell across the pillow. “That would make you my captain, then.”

The laugh that left him was loud and delighted, and Shanks saw her duck her head to hide her reaction at the sound. “You’re right, it _would_ _._ ”

“I’m afraid of what that smile means,” Makino sighed around her own laugh.

“Oh, I’m just thinking about all the dirty ways I could spin this. The possibilities are _endless_ _._ ”

“They always are with you.”

“Captain,” he told her, and when she blinked, reiterated, “‘They always are with you, _Captain_ ’.” When she rolled her eyes, smiling, he said, “You used to be so fond of that nickname. What happened?”

She flicked his nose, and her next words were spoken in a murmur, “A lot of things have happened.”

It was a truth that implied more than it said, and he found it in the whole of her, body and feelings bared, and the trust that sat in every gesture, from that first, tentatively reciprocated touch to the complete lack of hesitation that had preceded her first offer to stay the night.

And maybe they hadn’t sold her on the swashbuckling lifestyle, but he didn’t doubt that it was a different girl they’d be leaving; like it was a changed crew who’d be taking their leave of her.

“Tipped your life a little off kilter, did we?” Shanks asked.

Makino smiled, resting her cheek on his chest. “Something like that.”

He threaded his fingers through her hair, considering the dark strands, the colour sharp against the bare skin of her back. Her kerchief lay in the heap of clothes on the floor, along with the skirt he’d helped her out of, and with so much cheek she’d threatened to smother his grin with the fabric. So much softness in the small shape of her, in skin and smiles and kisses; in fabrics that hugged and draped, and slipped between his fingers. The sea had no sympathy for softness, and maybe she was better off with a life on land.

But he knew her with her sleeves rolled up, her hands on her hips, and that gentle authority that came without thinking, compelling a whole, rowdy crew to settle with the press of her mouth.

And maybe it was the sea that should count her blessing, that this particular pirate saw fit to keep her feet on land for a few more years.

“You know,” Shanks said then, the words kissed against the top of her head, then the shell of her ear, seeking the corner of her jaw, along with a grin. “Most of the guys call me 'Boss' if that’s more to your liking.”

He felt her laughter, and thought that he’d never liked the sound of it more, breathless and sated, but with that undercurrent of affection that said more about the kind of person she was than anything else about her; the girl who didn’t love him in spite of who he was, but because of it.

She kissed his cheek, and stuck her tongue out, her entirely goofy grin ruining her attempted rebuttal, but she didn’t seem to care.

“Not on your life, pirate.”

 

—

 

They’d meant for it to be memorable, but their last visit to Fuschia took an unexpected turn.

Well, the fact that it was _memorable_ wasn’t being contested, although it wasn’t exactly this they’d had in mind, for a last hurrah.

Stepping through the door to the galley, “Is there alcohol in this?” Doc asked, reaching for the steaming pot of coffee on the stove.

“There could be,” Yasopp said, glancing up from where he was seated on one of the long benches, cleaning one of his pistols. A wholly unnecessary venture, with the care he usually treated his personal arsenal, but Doc knew it was to keep his hands busy. And he wasn’t going to point fingers; he’d cleaned his surgical equipment three times.

When Yasopp made to rise, Doc waved him off, and poured himself a cup. “I just need something to stay awake.”

“You sure?” Yasopp asked. “That wasn’t a long nap you took, and you’ve been at it all day. Something with a stronger kick might be just what the doctor prescribed.” He lifted his brows. “You could even get away with saying that.”

The look he got for that was dry, but the corner of Doc’s mouth jutted upwards. “I’m good,” he said, rubbing a hand over his eyes, before easing himself into one of the chairs. The surgery was a few hours behind him, but the nap he’d taken hadn’t given him much rest. Their captain had had a few moments of questionable lucidity before the painkillers had dragged him back under.

Taking a sip of the scalding coffee, “She been out long?” Doc asked, nodding to the small shape curled up on the bench next to Yasopp.

Yasopp followed his gaze to where Makino was sleeping, tired expression softening a bit. “Half an hour, give or take. Came in little after Cap went under again. Didn’t have the stomach for anything to eat, but I poured her something to help her relax. Looks like it did the trick.”

Doc nodded, eyes still on Makino. Someone had thrown one of Shanks’ cloaks over her, but it wasn’t a good rest she was getting, judging by the laboured quality of her breathing, and the way she’d curled herself together, small limbs wrapped tight, as though for protection.

“She’s been holding it together pretty well,” Yasopp said then. “Considering.”

“She’s got a level head on her shoulders,” Doc agreed. “Captain would have been worse off, had it been the other way around.”

Yasopp snorted around a smile. “They even each other out that way, I guess.” He sighed then, dropping his eyes back to Makino. “I still can’t believe we’re leaving her behind.”

“It’s not forever,” Doc pointed out.

“Ten years is still a damn long time,” Yasopp said. “And that’s assuming we even make it back.” He shook his head. “So much for enjoying their last time together. You’d think fate would give them a break.”

Doc said nothing to that, but looked at the girl sleeping on the bench, wrapped in the too-large cloak, her lashes dark on her cheeks. She hadn’t stirred at their talking, but he’d dealt with enough stubborn patients fighting off exhaustion to recognise when the body took matters into its own hands. There was no fighting that.

And the surgery had taken a lot out of him, but his exhaustion was different, because it hadn’t been doubt that had kept him company into the long hours. He was certain in his skill, and he’d treated traumatic amputations before (although the sea king was, admittedly, a first). The surgery had kept his hands busy, but he knew it was worse for those who could do nothing but sit on theirs and wait.

She’d thanked him, earlier. Terrified and tired and holding back her tears with sheer force of will alone, she’d stopped him on his way out of Shanks’ cabin, and had murmured her gratitude, even as she’d looked like she barely had strength left to stand. She’d still had time to _see_ him, when someone else might not have had time to see beyond themselves, or the person on their mind.

“Come on,” Doc said then, tossing back the last dregs of his coffee, before rising to his feet.

“What are you doing?” Yasopp asked.

“Taking her back to Cap’s cabin,” Doc said, moving around the table. “Can’t be comfortable, sleeping like that.” He looked at Yasopp. “I could use some help with the door.”

Yasopp was already rising from his seat as Doc bent down to lift Makino up, cloak and all. She didn’t even twitch at the disturbance, and felt almost comically small in his arms, the tiny shape of her seeming at odds with that quiet strength that endured and endured without breaking.

The trek to the captain’s quarters was a short one, but Makino didn’t stir at the movement, and Yasopp held the door open as Doc ducked inside.

“He’s still out cold,” Yasopp remarked, looking towards the bunk where Shanks was laid out, an unnatural stillness in slack limbs which usually took up the whole mattress. They’d changed his shirt and cleaned away the blood, the cabin carrying a sharp, sterile smell that invoked the sickbay, but it was preferable to the lingering stench of cauterised flesh that still clung to Doc’s nose.

“He will be for a while, with what I gave him for the pain,” Doc said, easing Makino down on the mattress, on their captain’s right. She still didn’t wake, and he tucked the cloak closer around her to ward off the chill creeping through the open porthole. Compared to Shanks, she barely took up any space, curled on her side next to his bigger frame, but he’d put her close enough that between the cloak and the man it belonged to, she’d be plenty warm. It was a kinder alternative than the bench in the galley, even if it wasn’t strictly policy to disturb patients recovering from surgery. Although Doc doubted Shanks would have minded this particular disturbance.

As though having thought along the same lines, “You’re usually strict on the ‘undisturbed bed rest’ rule,” Yasopp observed from the doorway where he was leaning against the frame, arms in a slack cross.

Straightening his back, Doc turned away from the bunk, and the two sleeping on it. “Yeah,” he said, a small smile threatening despite the day they’d all had. When he made for the door, Yasopp stepped aside to let him pass.

“I guess she’s the kind of person you make exceptions for.”

 

—

 

Like they all loved her differently, they all said their goodbyes in different ways.

“I’ll miss your cooking, Ma-chan,” Lucky announced, with the weight of a much greater declaration, and hoisted her up in a hug that saw her feet leaving the docks, and her laughter tumbling off her tongue into the open air, right past the lump in her throat.

“Practice your aim,” Yasopp told her, when Lucky had put her back down, arms wrapped around her in an embrace that, although not as enthusiastic, was no less earnest.

Then with a wink, “You favour your right side, so work on that. I’d suggest getting moving targets. Maybe the kid will help you out—bullets bounce off him now, right?”

More of them joined in to offer their own goodbyes, until she was laughing so hard her chest hurt, her heart breaking but the crowd of them around her holding it together, hands touching her back, her shoulders, grounding her to the softly swaying docks. And she knew every name and every laugh that belonged to it, and thought, with a sudden ache of realisation, that she would _miss_ this crew.

“Give Garp our regards,” someone told her, grin full of cheek.

“And if anyone tries their luck, give ‘em hell!”

“But don’t go giving your heart to a different crew while we’re gone!”

“Oh, I don’t think you need to worry,” Makino said, gaze seeking Shanks through the crowd, sans straw hat and with his expression bared for her to see. “I doubt there are a lot of pirates on this sea who’d find this place worth visiting.”

“Their loss, obviously,” Shanks murmured, and her smile trembled a bit, but she didn’t give herself room to break. Not just yet.

She turned to Ben, waiting a few steps away from the others. He wasn’t smoking, and Makino tried not to focus too much on the fact.

“Your common sense will be sorely missed,” he told her, predictably dry, but with an embrace that lingered a moment longer than she’d expected, and that she claimed for all it was worth. “Don’t lose it.”

The sob that left her did it with her permission. “I’ll miss you, Ben Beckman,” she said, and when she drew back she was crying in earnest. “Keep him out of trouble? And away from bears.”

She got a smile for that. “I’ll do my best. But no promises on the bears.”

She found a laugh, even as it felt beyond her, and when he turned away to make for the ship, the rest of them followed suit.

Then it was just her and Shanks. And Shanks…

Shanks stole her favourite kerchief and kissed her until her knees buckled. Then with a grin he kissed the tears on her cheeks, kissed her jaw and her nose, until she was laughing through her sobs. And they might all love her each in their own way, but she’d never in her life been loved like that.

“Say yes next time,” he told her, with a smile that would have seemed far too subdued for him, if she hadn’t known to read it for what it was.

“Come back and ask me, and we’ll see,” Makino said, and with a breath, added fiercely, “So don’t die while you’re away.”

He laughed, delighted by the challenge offered, and the shameless order. But the sea seemed to have more mercy for that than for promises, even if he kissed a promise against her knuckles anyway.

“Not on your life, pirate,” Shanks said, in what wanted to be a vow but that sounded more like a plea than anything else. It was the last thing he said to her before he turned for the gangway, and the crew waiting on deck.

They watched her from the ship as it pulled away, some of them leaning over the railing, waving. Luffy’s shoulders shook under her hands, but she dug her heels into the docks, to the solid truth of her island and the life she’d chosen, and watched as the ship and his sails disappeared towards the horizon.

“Yo, ho, haul together,” she murmured, voice breaking over the familiar tune, hoarse with tears that hadn’t fallen yet. In her grip, Luffy gave a sobbing hiccup, and she squeezed his shoulders, dragging in a shuddering breath, “Hoist the colours high.”

“Heave _ho—_ ” Her voice lodged in her throat, strangling the next line, before she stuttered it out, “thieves and beggars.” Luffy wiped at his eyes, shaded under the wide brim of Shanks’ straw hat, and Makino let her breath rush out. And her voice didn’t waver when she offered the last line to the breeze—

“Never shall we die.”

 

—

 

He’d sailed the length of the Grand Line once already, from Paradise to the New World, but somehow, the brief voyage across the East Blue from Fuschia to Loguetown was one of the hardest he’d ever made.

He still woke reaching for her, remnants of a persistent fever left over from his amputation blurring the line between dream and reality, and there were mornings he’d wake up and he’d _feel_ her next to him; the familiar shape of her under his arm, and her laughter soft and drowsy in his ears.

It took time getting out of his bunk on those mornings, even longer than usual for him, the first few minutes of realisation spent chasing the dying echoes of the fever-dream; the memory of her still-shy touches and the smell of her skin.

Shanks knew there’d be a day soon where he’d stop — where he’d wake and go about his day as he had, all those mornings before he’d known what it felt like, waking up beside her — but couldn’t decide if it would be a relief or not to finally let that last part of her go.

The evening sun was on the last leg of its trek across the sky, dripping gold like slowly sinking tree-sap on the roof tiles and the surface of the water, bleeding red on the horizon. Loguetown’s port looked the same as he remembered, the last time he’d been here, the day he’d set out after Captain Roger’s execution, and Shanks spared a passing thought to the similarity — the grief that seemed to accompany every visit to this place, whether he was arriving or departing.

“This is it,” Ben said, from where he came to stand at his elbow, observing the rest of the crew disembarking. “No turning back.” Then, inclining his head to Shanks, “You okay?”

“I’m going to drink tonight,” Shanks said, eyes on the town up ahead, stretching out from the docks. The last time he’d see the East Blue in ten years. “Until I stop feeling like turning the ship around, or until I forget what she looks like. Whichever comes first.”

He dragged in a breath, and let it sink out of his shoulders. The stump of his left arm ached, but not as much as the knot in his chest. “All I know is that I’m going to get so shitfaced I can’t think.”

The stark candour wasn’t unexpected, but then Shanks doubted Ben would have flinched even if it had been. And he wasn’t surprised when all his best friend did was nod.

“I’ll get the glasses.”

 

—

 

It got easier with time. Missing her.

Of course, even several seas away, she still featured as a popular topic of discussion.

Shanks had a feeling Makino might have been a little mortified, if she knew.

“What’s she like? Boss’ girl.”

The newbies always asked questions once they found out, although that wasn’t much of a surprise, as they weren’t exactly in short supply of people willing to answer them, and to help paint a picture — a whole mosaic of impressions, from hearts that all remembered different things.

Of course, certain aspects of her character seemed universally accepted, and _kind_ was usually the first thing mentioned, and to a rousing chorus of agreement. Then would follow a string of often-uttered words, kept from becoming platitudes by the fondness that had only deepened with years of speaking them. _Sweet. Funny. Gentle._

“She cooks,” Lucky said when asked, and with enough wistfulness to suggest a sentiment that ran deeper than simple appreciation for her cooking, although those who knew him knew that wasn’t the case.

“She’s too patient for her own good,” Ben said, but with a smile that belied the deadpan utterance.

Yasopp only grinned, and, “She’s _pretty_ ,” he told them, and _that_ never failed to get their attentions. “And not just your garden variety beauty, either. This is the kind of stuff they write songs about.” He threw a look at Shanks. “How many verses did you get to, for the one you started on?”

“Six,” Shanks said. Then with a frown, “No—seven. You know, I can’t remember. I was wasted when I got the idea.”

“And heartsick,” Yasopp quipped, which earned him a crude gesture, although the effect was ruined somewhat by the sombre smile that accompanied it.

“That was the night before we set out from Loguetown, right?” someone asked.

Shanks looked into his drink. “Yeah. I remember very little of that night, but I think the refrain was really catchy?”

“It was,” Yasopp said, grinning. “Didn’t it go something like ‘secure me to the mast or I’ll sink into her depths, but if this is how I go, let it be without regrets’? I still think you’re reaching with that rhyme, but the imagery makes up for it.”

Shanks’ grin was startled, but before he could offer a comment on that — “Wait,” someone said, “Wasn’t the mast supposed to be a euphemism? Like ‘secure _my_ mast, or I’ll sink into her depths’?”

“That sounds more like Boss,” someone else said, to several murmurs of agreement.

“You’re right,” Shanks said, frown deepening. “That does sound more like something I’d come up with.”

Someone was stomping the rhythm now, rooting it out from where it had been tucked away for years, the melody following suit, sitting first with a hesitant hum on several breaths, before they found it in truth, and it stumbled, laughing off their tongues.

“I remember now!” someone called from across the galley, before raising their voice to sing, a deep, laughing baritone, “‘She’ll raise my anchor and hoist my sails, even apart, her spell prevails!’”

“Oh, oh! ‘Booze and water are naught but dregs, I’ll quench my thirst between her legs!’”

Someone else latched on, choking on their laughter, “‘I’ll steer my ship through her narrow strait, and pray god she thinks it’s worth the wait!’”

“‘ _Hard_ to starboard, _grab_ the wheel’,” the whole galley came together, a loud, booming chorus, and laughing so hard now they could barely get the words out, “‘ _I’ll board her vessel with sword and steel!’”_

Yasopp was wiping tears from his eyes. “She’s a _ship_ now? I thought she was supposed to be the personification of the sea? The metaphors are all over the place.”

“That’s the only problem you can find with this?” Ben asked, with a look at Shanks, who was staring into his empty glass with an odd smile.

“Didn’t you also have a whole verse dedicated to her eyes?” Yasopp asked.

“Two,” Ben said dryly, before Shanks could answer. “Both excruciatingly descriptive.”

Shanks hadn’t looked up from the glass, and the last drops of his drink gathering at the bottom. He tried to remember what her eyes looked like, but came up short. And it wasn’t the first time he failed at doing so, like it wasn’t the first time the regret found him, that he did.

“Boss?” someone asked, drawing his attention away from the empty glass, and that hole in his memory that seemed to be expanding with every year. It wasn’t that he was forgetting about her, but there were things he felt he should remember that he couldn’t, like whether her eyes had been more brown or gold when the light hit them, and how she’d laugh. He remembered loving the sound of it, but not the sound itself.

It seemed, in hindsight, a particularly cruel fate.

Lifting his eyes, Shanks just looked at them, smile a little wistful. Their laughter had quieted, likely at the fact that he hadn’t joined them in it, but the remnants of their mirth still clung to their air, a warm echo.

Then, smile quirking, “I think I want to finish that song,” he mused.

Several grins greeted that remark. “Someone get the captain a pen and paper!”

“And another drink!”

“I’ll get the thesaurus!”

“She would be horrified if she knew,” Ben told him, but with the smile on his face, couldn’t seem to manage a convincing show of reproach.

Shanks just grinned. “Yeah,” he laughed, and even if he couldn’t quite conjure the image of what she’d looked like, he found he could picture her reaction without trouble — the fierce blush in her cheeks, and her laughter, loud and just a little mortified where it dragged from her throat without her volition. He could almost remember what it sounded like.

“She would be.”

 

—

 

‘Moored to Her Port’ (in some places known as ‘The Thirsty Sailor’ and in others as ‘Naught But Dregs’) caught on quickly, and trailed in their wake across the Grand Line, ten verses in total barring the refrain, and full of lewd metaphors and nautical euphemisms.

But even with its raunchy trappings, there were parts of her hidden between the lines — that unbearable kindness ( _there ne’er a gentler heart was found, and no one’s voice a gentler sound_ _)_ , and the eyes that saw a man for who he was ( _dark her depths and dark her eyes, both endless as the ocean’s skies_ ). There was the laugh that had been their favourite ( _the song of birds and sirens both, it’d keep a drowning man afloat_ _)_ , and beneath that again, something else, a thread of an old hope strung between the verses, running from the first line and through the last—

_Worn and weary with hearts to mend, there’s peace beyond this journey’s end / a sailor might know many a-home, but nothing beats her port in a storm._

(the slightly cheekier addendum to which sang: _she’ll greet him back with love and ardour, to drop his anchor in her harbour!_ _)_

If it ever found its way back to her, all the way over in East Blue, they didn’t know. But even if it hadn’t, it was a small part of her to keep with them, along with that old hope, that if it hadn’t reached her yet, maybe it still would one day.

 

—

 

The years crawled by, one after the other. They reached the second half of the Grand Line, carving out a place for themselves on the world’s most dangerous ocean, but even on that turbulent sea, their thoughts drifted back on occasion, to kinder waters.

“Hey, did you hear? Some tool asked Makino-san to marry him.”

A rush of surprised mutters washed across the galley, and Yasopp glanced up from where he’d just stepped through the doorway, and before he could stop himself, blurted, “You’re keeping tabs on her?”

Every single head in the galley swivelled towards him, and there was a beat of silence so profound, Yasopp had the distinct impression they hadn’t realised he’d entered.

“Er—no,” was his answer, just as someone else said, “Yes.”

Amused, he arched a brow, and found several gazes averting themselves from his, while others met it head on, seeming cheerfully unperturbed by the fact that they’d been caught red-handed.

“Does Boss know about this?” Yasopp asked them, although from their reactions, he doubted that was the case.

His suspicions were proven correct a second later, when someone said, “Of course not.”

“So why are you keeping tabs on her, exactly?” Yasopp asked, arms crossed over his chest. “I take it it’s not just for kicks?”

They were looking between themselves now, like naughty children caught doing something they shouldn’t have trying to silently communicate the need for someone to take the brunt of the blame.

“Ten years is a long time,” someone blurted then. “If she changed her mind, we, ah, thought Boss might want to know?”

Yasopp just looked at them, and the whole variety of expressions ranging from unapologetic to sheepish, to those carrying a twinge of shame. “That’s all?”

There was a laden pause. No one seemed eager to speak.

Then — “We were thinking that if there was someone else in the picture, Boss might want to go back,” someone piped up. “Challenge him to a duel, maybe.”

“Or we could give him a call,” someone else suggested. “Whoever it might be. To offer some...healthy advice.”

“He means threats!” someone called from the back of the galley, to a hoot of approval.

“I got that,” Yasopp said dryly, gaze sweeping across the galley. Most of them had their eyes turned away, expressions failing at innocence so spectacularly, it seemed a fitting homage to the woman in question.

Then, striding forward to take a seat at one of the tables, “So what have you found out?” Yasopp asked.

The galley filled with grins, and, “She turned down a marriage proposal last week,” he was told. “Some aggressive farmer who owns like half the windmills in the village. Apparently it wasn’t his first attempt, but according to my source, he got so pushy she banned him from the bar.”

A sharp whistle of approval keened through the air, followed by more laughter, and Yasopp could only shake his head, but when they raised their glasses, reached for his own.

“That’s our girl!”

 

—

 

The war changed them, and each of them a little differently.

They say that war will do that, but you don’t really know until it’s over, just how much truth there is in those words. And even if they’d escaped the fighting, they were neither of them unscathed in the aftermath.

The funeral was over and they were waiting on the ship, their captain lingering by the newly erected graves with one of Whitebeard’s commanders. They’d be setting sail for the East Blue after this, but it wasn’t anticipation that greeted the thought. Instead, a restless note of apprehension seemed to have carved itself into the planks, into every pair of crossed arms and every set of furrowed brows, shivering in the slack sails, in the soft creak of the rigging.

“I wonder what would have happened if she’d come with us, back then,” someone spoke up, the query coming to settle on the breeze, ripe with salt and the smell of flowers. The ship felt quiet for their crew, but then maybe that was appropriate, given their surroundings.

Someone expelled a breath. “It’s times like this that makes me glad she didn’t.”

“Still. She probably watched the broadcast.”

“Would be surprised if she hadn’t,” someone muttered.

“Wonder what she thought about it,” came the murmur. “Roger’s— _Ace_. That time he visited, when he talked about her? It sounded like they were close. She’d—Luffy probably isn’t the only one taking it hard. If we’d just gotten to Marineford sooner, we could have—”

“There’s no point regretting that now,” Ben spoke up, his voice level, but it severed the words before they could be spoken. “The war is over. What happened, happened.”

There was a tense pause, wherein no one spoke. Then — “Do you think she’ll still want us back, after this?”

A murmur of unease followed the question. Yasopp glanced up from where he sat, cleaning his rifle.

Ben just looked at them all, expression blank but for the unforgiving slant of his brow. When he spoke, his voice had a sharp note to it, “You’re doing her a disservice, asking that question.”

Some of them flinched at that, and Ben sighed around his cigarette. “Listen,” he said. “The idiot is nervous enough about going back as it is. He doesn’t need you all piling your worries on top.”

Chagrined expressions preceded a low-muttered chorus of apology, and, “Mother has spoken, kids,” Yasopp quipped, with a wink at Ben, who met it with a long-suffering look.

“Besides,” Ben said then, mouth lifting the barest of fractions, “you’re the ones who’ve been keeping tabs on her. What do you think?”

Yasopp’s grin flashed, before it was echoed across the deck, along with a shiver of laughter that saw some of the apprehension easing out of the air, softened into something a little easier to bear — something a little closer to eagerness than unease.

Then, when the quiet had settled back down, broken only by the push of the water against the hull, and Yasopp’s muted tinkering, a voice spoke up—

“Is it too early to place our bets for the wedding?”

 

—

 

It took ten years and a war before they made it back. And it was a different ship that returned to familiar waters, with new crewmembers aboard who hadn’t been with them when they’d last set sail from the East Blue.

“Did you place your bets?”

“Oh yeah, ages ago.”

“What on?”

“That she’ll push him off the docks for being late.”

“Yeah? I’ve got my money on public indecency.”

“Really? This is Ma-chan we’re talking about.”

A grin, and a shrug. “Ten years can change a person. And you remember the incident with the nightdress.”

“I don’t think there’s a single person on this ship who was there for that who doesn’t remember. But if that’s the case, let’s pray Garp isn’t there to witness it this time. I don’t think any of us would survive that.”

“No shit. Garp scares the bejeezus out of me, and I’m not even the one wooing the woman who’s practically his daughter.”

“Speaking of wooing—it’s been ten years,” someone else mused. “Boss’ll have to renew his efforts. And probably make an effort, too. The last guy who propositioned her had like five windmills to his name. Stakes are higher now than they were.”

A rumble of agreement chased the remark, but then, “Not that I don’t appreciate you all being so invested in this,” Shanks spoke up, drawing their attentions across the deck, “but you’re kind of killing the mood here. Also, what’s this about windmills?”

“Er, nothing!”

“Sorry, Boss!”

“We’ve got our fingers crossed for you! Since, you know, you’ve only got one set of fingers to cross and all.”

That one set of fingers was used to flip them off, and the look he shot them told them plainly he wasn’t buying their show of selfless support, as Shanks turned his gaze back to the horizon, and Dawn Island where it sat in the water.

No one said anything else, and for a spell, there was quiet, no more bets or speculations exchanged behind their captain’s back.

Of course, they weren’t a crew who could stay _quiet_ for long.

“Kissing with tongue?” someone murmured.

“After ten years? There better damn well be!”

 

—

 

In the end, she didn’t push him off the docks, although the question of public indecency was still up for debate, as Makino shucked her inhibitions on the shore and met him at a run, and a kiss with enough tongue that the cabin boys were told to cover their eyes.

“Boss!” Yasopp called, laughing. “Not in front of the kids!”

And then Makino was blushing, and they were all of them laughing, and for the span of a breath it hadn’t been ten years or several seas spanning the length of them, until she breathed, and touching her fingers to Shanks’ cheek, murmured, “You’ve changed.”

But before the words had even been given a chance to settle, she was smiling, and told him, told all of them, and with unbearable warmth, “Welcome back.”

And as they crowded into Party’s to fill the chairs and tables, letting their laughter fill whatever space was left when they were done, it didn’t matter that they were all a little changed, or that it had been ten years since any of them had last set foot in her bar, as Makino pulled down the unopened bottle that had been on her shelf for a decade, and welcomed them home.

“Were you nervous?” she asked Shanks, pushing the glass across the counter towards his hand, only to have him reach for her fingers instead.

He was grinning — had been since stepping off the ship earlier. And it was hard to look away from her, at once exactly like he’d imagined she would be, and nothing at all like he’d remembered; her hair longer, and her eyes neither brown or gold, but somehow both.

But the kerchief was the same, as was the smile that came to sit, deep in her eyes.

“Who, me?” Shanks asked, gripping her fingers, and made no attempt to hide how much his own shook. “I am the epitome of confidence.”

“Meaning you were just about ready to violently empty your stomach into the ocean?” she asked.

“Just about? I threw up twice just on our way over from Syrup.”

She laughed, the sound of it falling between them, into the space where he’d caught her fingers in his, before he lifted them up, ignoring his untouched drink in favour of grinning a kiss against her knuckles.

“You have the uncanny ability of bringing me to my knees,” he told her, finding her smile startled and pleased, before he dropped his voice, and with a grin that stretched with enough wicked purpose to make her eyes widen, “Of course, I’d rather it was between your legs than over the railing of my ship.”

He couldn’t decide which was the most delightful reaction — the loud, embarrassed laugh, or the truly magnificent blush that followed, stretching all the way from her collar to the very top of her cheeks, but it didn’t really matter which it was when the realisation followed, that this, at least, hadn’t changed.

“I’ve missed you blushing,” he told her quietly, smile too tender to be shameless. “Reminds me that I have a purpose in life.”

Her next laugh was a sigh, and he watched as she touched her fingers to her cheek, as though seeking the warmth under her skin. “Something tells me I better get used to it again,” Makino said, meeting his eyes. “With all of you back in my life.”

Shanks looked at her, smiling. “We are that,” he murmured.

As though on cue — “Hey, Ma-chan!” someone shouted from across the room, and she raised her eyes from his to seek whoever had called her name. “Boss wrote a shanty about you!”

She blinked at the sight of the room, suddenly full of grins, the widest out of all of them being his own, and Shanks watched as her eyes sought his, her earlier curiosity kindling with the first flickers of wary realisation, as someone called out, laughing—

“Wanna hear it?”

 


End file.
